USA 2:1 El Salvador: American Grit

The US survived a scare in Sandy, Utah tonight. Credit to Bob Bradley for making the key tactical changes to give the US a victory over a pesky El Salvador side. The rest of CONCACAF has clearly closed the gap on the US. In fact, it can be argued that the gap has disappeared entirely. But credit Bradley for getting the most out of a side whose talent level is highly questionable and whose depth is suspect. A squad full of journeyman players who lacks a quality star like a Wilson Palacios or a Rafa Marquez, cannot be considered a runaway favorite any longer in the region.

Bradley isn’t the best choice for US manager, but he is far from the worst. Right now, the issues with the US are far deeper and wider than a manager that is easy to blame for shortcomings. The entire US program needs to be overhauled, and given the tools available to him, it is entirely possible even the best manager in the world would struggle with this set of players, and the current structure of US Soccer.

The USA is likely to finish in CONCACAF’s top three. Costa Rica can be counted as overachievers that could not sustain their play for the long haul. The shocking 3-0 defeat at Saprissa, to a rejuvenated Mexico under Javier Aguirre bucked two trends. The first being Mexico’s road woes, and the second being Costa Rica’s previous mastery of its own home stadium.

It is entirely possible, perhaps even likely at this point that the US will need to improve dramatically to avoid the 3rd position in the Hex, though in 2002, third position in the Hex turned to World Cup Quarter finalists the next year. But that team had the likes of Earnie Stewart, John O’Brien, Claudio Reyna, Brian McBride and Eddie Pope anchoring the team.

This side looks comparatively young, immature, and weak. Perhaps it is too much to expect anything but a three and out World Cup 2010. But the good news is that the Americans after last night’s results are almost a lock to qualify.

The lesson is clear. The US plays hard, and I for one cannot criticize the effort. American grit continues to be the best virtue of the US Soccer program. But developing talented players who can hack it at more than mid level European clubs, and sustain a certain style of play is something that continues to allude the US program. Until changes are made to the program, 2002 will remain a high water mark for football in this country, and something we remissness about endlessly.

OTHER CONCACAF THOUGHTS:

The table may say that Costa Rica still has a shot at qualification, but the table can lie. We now can be almost certain that the CONCACAF top three will be Mexico, the USA and Honduras based on quality of the squad and the level of current play.

Mexico’s class shone through yesterday in San Jose. Under Javier Aguirre, Mexico is proving that they can get results away from home and don’t need to experiment with naturalized players not good enough to play for their native country to do so. Sven Goran Eriksson set Mexico back many years, but Aguirre is bringing the side to life at the right time. Don’t sleep on Mexico: unlike the United States they do have the talent to make serious noise without outside fluke events at a World Cup, and may just do so next year.

Honduras destroyed T&T despite having three key players missing due to suspension. The Hondurans are finally, after many years of falling short, reaching their potential.

About Kartik Krishnaiyer

A lifelong lover of soccer, the beautiful game, he served from January 2010 until May 2013 as the Director of Communications and Public Relations for the North American Soccer League (NASL).
Raised on the Fort Lauderdale Strikers of the old NASL, Krishnaiyer previously hosted the American Soccer Show on the Champions Soccer Radio Network, the Major League Soccer Talk podcast and the EPL Talk Podcast.
His soccer writing has been featured by several media outlets including The Guardian and The Telegraph. He is the author of the book Blue With Envy about Manchester City FC.
View all posts by Kartik Krishnaiyer →

Spector is clearly are best right back. Some of his crosses were absolutely fantastic.

It would have been nice to see Davies and Altidore start at Azteca.

I am so sick of hearing about hard work and effort. For once I want to see the US beat somebody of note with skill and technique.

Bornstein is an absolute freaking disgrace. He can not defend and cant attack, absolutely useless.

I am honestly torn between if maybe the US not making the world cup is a good thing. Look at England they miss out on the Euros, get a quality coach and have a real chance of winning the world cup. Every game where we claw and fight out a one goal victory against a concacaf team, it just continues to hide the cracks.

The inability of the US to put shots on frame is baffling. With better finishing, the
US could have leapt over Honduras in the crucial goal differential tiebreaker.
While the Honduran ref was miserable, the Yanks’ inability to put the match away was mindblowing.
Bradley again took too long to pull the trigger on his subs, and bringing on
Beckerman reeked of desperation. I have felt this badly about a US win maybe ever.

what the hell are you even talking about? Did you see the same match I did? It would have been 4-1 if it wasn’t for a greased official. Outside of that they played solid. Not great, but solid. They’ll do the same to T&T next week.

The US was the better team no doubt. The disallowed goal was as phantom as I have ever seen. We still continue to give away the ball way too much in the midfield. We are also still closing games by booting it down the field. Does Bradley know that it is ok to keep possesion of the ball. Beckerman did not belong on that field. (Well at least tonight. He is fine for RSL games.) Did Bradley seriously put Beckerman on b/c he was on home turf?? That was ludicrous that moment was way too big for him. Michael Bradley was dreadful today. He gave the ball away cheaply tonight non-stop. We deserved the win but still didn’t play that well.

Grit and determination are wonderful qualities, but if that’s what you have to rely on to get 3 points at home against El Salvador, then Kartik’s right: don’t make reservations yet for South Africa.

Agree re: Bornstein and Beckerman, but not just that: the back line is not safe without at least one of Gooch and DeMerit in the middle. If we don’t have all 4 first choice defenders away to Honduras, it could get ugly.

Holden’s looked pretty good off the bench the last few matches, so there’s something to take from this. And Altidore had two legit goals. I agree with Mark Fishin however–this is a win that gives me more foreboding than anything else.

In the end a typical US effort. The good news is that this group always plays better in the second game of the sequence so watch for a big effort against T&T.

If we play up to our potential and get a big win on Wednesday then the US really is in the drivers seat on the qualificiation run. Mexico should knock off Honduras and a US big win puts the US on top of the group if I am not mistaken.

As to last nights game, the defense looked terrible. Missing players account for that much. Give El Salvador credit, they have a habit of keeping things close and did so again last night. The US started out slow as normal and you then saw them go into another gear once they were behind.

Kartik, you are a bigger fool than I previously thought if this was a good effort. Do you realize how bad El Salvador is? This game was at home? So maybe Costa Rica is worse, but this team is going nowhere, and Bradley is to blame.

We have better players and a better league than Mexico or Honduras. You claim they are so much better, but Blanco who is Mexico’s best player is a marginal force in MLS. Honduras’ best player, Guevara may not even get his team to the playoffs. We have Donovan, Dempsey, Jozy, Bradley, Davies, etc.

Bradley’s inept tactics are what has kept Mexico and Honduras alive. If we had another manager, say a Dom Kinnear or a Sig Schmid, we’d be unbeaten in qualifying.

No big deal. The USA will be in first place after Wednesday games. After Wednesday games the standings will look as follows.
USA 16 points
Mexico 15 points
Costa Rica 15 points
Honduras 13 points
El Salvador and Trinidad Tobago 5 points each.

@trey
The mls better than mexican league? obviouly you don’t know what you’re talking about when it comes to world football. In the Americas the Brazilian, argentine, and Mexican leagues are the top three no questions asked. This coming from a brazilian-American who watches more mls than the brasileirao.

We need to start torres and call in castillo (so much better than bornstein going forward and can he be any worse than bornstein defensively?) to help us possessionwise. Though i’m not sure who’d come out for torres. Bradley the way he played today

We have much too much talent to be performing this way. We’re clearly the best in CONCACAF. Other than Guevara, Honduras has nobody and Mexico’s players are either really old like Franco and Blanco or too young like Vela and Dos Santos.

Franco wasn’t good enough for MLS and signed for some Argentine team, showing again how strong MLS is when compared with other leagues.

Come on LUyo. You can’t just pick one play and say “Well, if _________ hadn’t happened, then we’d be out.” Games hinge on dozens of plays, the reversal of any one could change outcomes. The table never lies.

if u look at how different our squad looks from the first game in qualifying after barbados to the squad we should have on wednesday more than half the players are different and the quality of the newer players is much higher

i think when we bring in a top class manager with better assistant coaches the player pool is good enough to do real damage in a world cup

were right on the edge of being a top class international team. the only thing were missing is a manager